Mauritius's new ecocide offence and the JBS Amazon complaints: what it means for a financial centre

Executive summary

Mauritius criminalised ecocide on 18 April 2026. It did so through the Anti-Money Laundering, Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Countering Proliferation Financing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2026 (Act No. 3 of 2026), passed by the National Assembly on 14 April, assented to on 17 April and published in the Government Gazette on 18 April 2026. Section 8 of that Act inserts a new Sub-Part E, "Ecocide", into Part XV of the Environment Act 2024.

An environmental crime, therefore, entered Mauritian law as part of an AML/CFT/CPF package. For an international financial centre, that is the right lens: the money-laundering consequences matter more to most Mauritian firms than the environmental offence itself.

• The offence. Section 135A punishes an unlawful or wanton act committed with knowledge of a substantial likelihood of severe damage to the environment that is either widespread or long-term. Penalties include up to 10 years' penal servitude, fines without a specified maximum, restoration or compensation orders, exclusion from public funding, withdrawal of permits, and recovery of clean-up costs. Anyone who incites, aids, or abets is equally liable.

• High thresholds. The Act defines all four key terms. "Wanton" is a proportionality test, not simple recklessness, and "widespread" means an entire ecosystem or species, or a large number of people.

• Territorial only. Ecocide is an offence in Mauritius. It has no extraterritorial reach, so the same conduct abroad cannot be prosecuted here as ecocide.

• The live test case. On 4 November 2026, 14 complaints were filed in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland, alleging that JBS profits from cattle raised on illegally cleared Amazon land and that its banks, auditors, asset managers and lawyers failed in their due diligence and reporting duties. None of the allegations has been tested.

• The Mauritian exposure is financial. Foreign conduct that would have been a crime in Mauritius is a "crime" for AML purposes. Global business companies, management companies, banks, and advisers that handle the proceeds face money laundering exposure under section 36 of the Financial Crimes Commission Act 2023, which requires them to report when they have reasonable grounds for suspicion, alongside their reporting obligations.

• What is genuinely new? Unlawful clearance abroad was most likely already a money-laundering predicate. The real extension is the wanton limb: lawful, even permitted, conduct causing clearly excessive damage arguably now generates proceeds of crime.

• Sharper enforcement tools. The same Act gives the FIU the power to suspend suspicious transactions for 72 hours, allows the Financial Crimes Commission to demand account information within 48 hours, and deems a convicted launderer's property to be proceeds of crime unless the contrary is proved.

What firms should do now:

• Treat severe environmental harm as a financial crime risk, extend enhanced due diligence to deforestation and supply-chain exposure, prepare for FIU and FCC orders, and brief boards.

• The law is untested, and the analysis below separates what the statute says from what remains argument.

What the law says

Under the new section 135A(1), any person who commits an unlawful or wanton act, knowing that there is a substantial likelihood that the act will cause severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment, commits an offence. The wording closely follows the definition proposed in 2021 by the Independent Expert Panel convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation.

Section 135A(3) defines the key terms:

• Wanton — "with reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated."

• Severe — "damage which involves very serious adverse changes, disruption or harm to any element of the environment, including grave impacts on human life or natural, cultural or economic resources."

• Widespread — "damage which is suffered by an entire ecosystem or species or a large number of human beings."

• Long-term — "damage which is irreversible or which cannot be redressed through natural recovery within a reasonable period of time."

On conviction, the offender is liable to:

• Fines without a stated numerical ceiling, set in proportion to the gravity of the conduct and to the offender's individual, financial and other circumstances, and, where relevant, to the gravity and duration of the damage and any financial benefit generated (s.135A(1)(a)).

• Penal servitude of up to 10 years (s.135A(1)(b)).

Anyone who incites, aids, or abets ecocide is liable to the same penalties (s.135A(2)).

Section 135B adds accessory non-criminal penalties or measures:

• Restoration or compensation — restoring the environment within a given period if the damage is reversible, or paying compensation if it is irreversible or the offender cannot carry out the restoration.

• Exclusion from public funding — including tender procedures, grants, concessions and licences.

• Withdrawal of permits — and of authorisations for the activities that led to the offence.

Under section 135C, the Director must recover from the convicted person all expenses, including interest and costs, of clean-up or removal, measures to prevent or reduce the damage, measures to dispose of or deal with it, and any assessment of its social, economic and environmental effects. Recovery runs under the Recovery of State Debts Act, and sums go to the Consolidated Fund.

Four limits are worth noting:

• Acts, not omissions. The definition refers to an act. Pure inaction is not directly punishable; a passive party would have to be reached through aiding and abetting or under other law.

• No extraterritorial reach. Ecocide is an offence in Mauritius. Sections 135A–C contain no provision extending it to conduct abroad.

• Not retrospective. The 2020 Wakashio oil spill is often cited locally as the kind of harm the offence targets, but it is an illustration, not a case the new law can reach.

• Public officers. Local commentary notes that section 144 of the Environment Act, which limits the criminal liability of certain public officers, was not amended to align with the new offence.

The live case: JBS

• On 4 November 2026, the Transnational Legal Coalition, a newly formed network of lawyers and advocacy groups, filed 14 complaints in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland concerning JBS, the world's largest meat company, which is now headquartered in the Netherlands. One is a criminal complaint to Dutch prosecutors accusing JBS itself of money laundering. The others ask authorities to investigate whether firms that lend to, invest in, audit or advise JBS failed to apply enhanced due diligence and to report suspicion. Those named in coverage include Barclays, Standard Chartered, Rabobank, BlackRock, KPMG, EY and the Dutch law firm Loyens & Loeff.

• The legal theory is that cattle raised on land cleared in breach of Brazilian law are criminal property, and that the profits derived from them are proceeds of crime. The complaints rely on a study the coalition commissioned from AidEnvironment. It cross-referenced official cattle-transport records with rural property registers and national deforestation data, and linked JBS's direct and indirect suppliers to more than 6.5 million hectares of Amazon deforestation since 1988: roughly 3.4 million hectares through direct suppliers and 3.2 million through indirect ones. The coalition also says more than 80 per cent of the suppliers it sampled showed deforestation in protected areas.

• Two cautions apply. Deforestation linked to a supply chain through transport records and registers is evidence of association, not proof that any particular clearance was illegal. And most of the identified area was cleared before August 2008, which matters for whether a given clearance can be shown to be unlawful.

• JBS rejects the claims and says it automatically blocks farms with illegal deforestation, embargoed areas, overlaps with Indigenous land or signs of slave labour. Separately, its July 2026 sustainability report dropped its 2040 net-zero target and any mention of its goal to eliminate deforestation from its Brazilian supply chains. None of the allegations has been tested by a court or regulator.

How section 135A would apply to comparable facts

The answer depends on where the conduct takes place.

If the conduct occurs in Mauritius

Prosecutors would need to prove three things.

1. An unlawful or wanton act. Clearance in breach of Mauritian planning, forestry or environmental law would ordinarily satisfy the unlawful limb. Where permits were in place, the wanton limb is narrower than it first appears. It is not simple recklessness but a proportionality test: reckless disregard for damage that is clearly excessive relative to the expected social and economic benefits. A permitted project with genuine economic benefit will not easily be characterised as wanton.

2. Severe and either widespread or long-term damage. The statutory bar is high. Widespread refers to an entire ecosystem or species, or a large number of people, so clearing part of a forest does not necessarily qualify. In a small island state with fragmented native habitats and endemic species, however, destroying one remaining habitat could, in principle, affect an entire ecosystem or species, so the threshold may be reached on a much smaller area than in the Amazon. Many cases are more likely to become long-term limb damage: damage that is irreversible or does not recover naturally within a reasonable period.

3. Knowledge of a substantial likelihood of such damage. This is usually the decisive factual question. Continuing an operation after warnings, satellite alerts, regulatory notices, or known legal prohibitions is the kind of evidence that would be relevant. The European complaints make the same argument about JBS and its financial partners: that the risks were long-standing and well documented.

Liability is not confined to the company. Because the offence covers any person, and anyone who incites, aids, or abets it, it can, in principle, reach directors and senior managers, and, in appropriate cases, advisers or financiers who knowingly facilitated the conduct. Accessory liability still requires proof of knowledge, which is a significant evidential hurdle for third parties.

If the conduct occurs abroad but is connected to a Mauritian reporting person

This is the realistic scenario for Mauritius, and section 135A does not directly address it. Sections 135A–C contain no extraterritorial provision, so clearance carried out wholly abroad cannot be prosecuted in Mauritius as ecocide. Accessory liability is no substitute: aiding or abetting, from Mauritius, an act abroad that is not itself a Mauritian offence is at best untested.

The connection runs through the money laundering offence instead. Take a Mauritian global business company that holds shares in, or lends to, a foreign cattle group; the management company that administers it; and the Mauritian bank that receives its dividends and loan repayments. Four questions determine their exposure.

1. Is the foreign conduct a "crime"? Foreign activity is a crime under Mauritian AML law if it would have been one had it taken place in Mauritius (the definition is explained in the next section). Section 135A's elements are applied as if the clearance had happened here: an unlawful or wanton act, severe and either widespread or long-term damage, and the operator's knowledge of that likelihood. Unlawful clearance may already constitute a crime under ordinary Mauritian law, without amounting to ecocide.

2. Are the property proceeds? Dividends, sale proceeds, loan repayments, and fees can constitute proceeds of crime where they derive, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from that activity.

3. What did the Mauritian firm have reason to suspect? Money laundering under section 36 of the Financial Crimes Commission Act 2023 is charged on the basis that the person had reasonable grounds to suspect that the property was derived from crime. That is an objective standard. Published NGO investigations, satellite alerts, embargo lists, and adverse media, the material on which the JBS complaints rely, are exactly what a court would weigh.

4. Who is exposed? The firm itself and the individuals who manage it. In recent cases, the Financial Crimes Commission has charged company directors with money laundering under section 36 read with section 44(1)(b) of the Interpretation and General Clauses Act.

Alongside criminal exposure sits the reporting obligation. Once suspicion arises, the reporting person must report it to the FIU, which can now order the transaction to be suspended.

The parallel with JBS is direct. The European complaints do not accuse JBS's banks and advisers of ecocide. They say those firms had reason to suspect the proceeds were criminal and failed to apply enhanced due diligence or to report. A Mauritian reporting person with a comparable client would face the same question under Mauritian law.

Why the money-laundering route matters most for Mauritius

Large-scale land clearance for ranching is not a realistic domestic scenario in Mauritius. The realistic exposure lies in the financial centre: global business companies, funds, management companies, banks, auditors and law firms that hold, finance, administer or advise businesses with agribusiness, timber, mining or extractive interests elsewhere.

The gateway is the definition of "crime" in section 2 of the Financial Intelligence and Anti-Money Laundering Act (FIAMLA). It covers an offence punishable by penal servitude, imprisonment for more than 10 days, or a fine exceeding 5,000 rupees. It also includes an activity carried on outside Mauritius which, had it taken place in Mauritius, would have constituted a crime. Act No. 3 of 2026 did not change that definition. It amended the Financial Crimes Commission Act 2023 so that "crime" there now has the same meaning as in FIAMLA, aligning the money laundering offence in section 36 of that Act with the FIAMLA definition.

That foreign limb raises two untested questions, which qualify everything that follows:

• Which law decides unlawfulness? The test asks whether the conduct would have breached a Mauritian prohibition had it taken place in Mauritius. The foreign law alone does not settle it.

• How the thresholds travel. It is unclear how a court would assess "severe" and "widespread" in relation to a foreign ecosystem when the conduct is notionally relocated to Mauritius.

Three points follow, and the first is the one most often missed.

• For unlawful clearance abroad, ecocide adds little. The bar for a "crime" is very low. Clearance abroad in breach of law is likely to qualify already, by reference to ordinary Mauritian forestry or environmental offences, without reaching ecocide's thresholds. Firms should not read the test as "conduct amounting to ecocide"; the real bar is much lower.

• The genuinely new predicate is wanton conduct. An act can be lawful, even permitted, and still be ecocide if it shows reckless disregard for clearly excessive damage. Proceeds of lawful-but-wanton conduct abroad that meet the severity thresholds are now arguably proceeds of crime in Mauritius. That is the reform's real extension of money-laundering risk.

• No specific predicate needs to be proved. The Privy Council held in DPP v Bholah (2011), under the predecessor Economic Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2000, that proof of a specific predicate offence is not required. Mauritian courts have consistently applied that principle under FIAMLA.

The European coalition is pursuing the same conceptual route against JBS's banks and advisers. Mauritius now has two routes: a direct ecocide prosecution and the proceeds-of-crime route. For Mauritian reporting persons, the second is the one that bites.

Other changes in Act No. 3 that matter here

The same Act strengthens the tools that would be used in such a case:

• FIU suspension orders (new s.10A FIAMLA). The FIU may order a reporting person to suspend a suspicious transaction for up to 72 hours, or 120 hours where the deadline falls on a Sunday, public holiday or FIU non-working day. A Judge may extend it. The reporting person must supply additional information within 24 hours and must not disclose that an order was made.

• Information notices (new s.68A FCCA). For asset recovery investigations, the Financial Crimes Commission may require a financial institution to provide customer and account information within 48 hours. Failure to comply carries a fine of up to one million rupees.

• Deemed proceeds (new s.38(5) FCCA). On conviction under section 36, a person's property is deemed to have been derived from crime unless the contrary is proved and may be forfeited.

• Property of corresponding value. Attachment and confiscation powers now extend to other property of equivalent value where the proceeds themselves cannot be traced or recovered.

What should reporting persons do now?

• Risk assessment — treat severe environmental harm as a financial crime risk in business and customer risk assessments, especially for agribusiness, timber, mining, extractive and shipping exposures.

• Lawful but high-impact activity — do not assume a permit ends the analysis; the wanton limb can reach permitted projects whose damage is clearly excessive.

• Due diligence — extend enhanced due diligence and adverse media screening to deforestation findings, environmental enforcement and supply-chain exposure.

• Suspicion reporting — make sure staff understand that funds derived from environmental crime, at home or abroad, can trigger a reporting obligation.

• Readiness — prepare to respond to FIU suspension orders and 48-hour FCC information notices.

• Board oversight — brief boards on the new offence and on their own potential exposure as decision-makers.

Conclusion

Ecocide under section 135A is an offence for conduct in Mauritius; it has no extraterritorial reach. If the essential features of the JBS allegations occurred in Mauritius, section 135A would provide a direct route to prosecution, subject to demanding statutory thresholds.

The same conduct abroad could not be prosecuted here as ecocide. For most Mauritian firms, though, the sharper question is not whether they could commit ecocide. It is whether they could end up handling the proceeds of environmental crime abroad, a risk that existed before April 2026 and that the wanton limb now extends to some lawful conduct.

The JBS complaints show how quickly that question can reach banks, auditors, asset managers and lawyers.

The law is untested, and any actual case will turn on proof of each statutory element.

Sources

• Act No. 3 of 2026 (gazetted text, ss.8–10): https://mauritiusassembly.govmu.org/mauritiusassembly/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Act0326.pdf

• Financial Intelligence and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2002, s.2 (Bank of Mauritius copy): https://www.bom.mu/sites/default/files/the_financial_intelligence_and_anti-money_laundering_act_2002_1.pdf

• DPP v Bholah (Privy Council, 2011): https://www.lccsa.org.uk/director-of-public-prosecutions-v-bholah-2011/

• ENSafrica, Mauritius criminalises Ecocide (5 May 2026): https://www.ensafrica.com/news/detail/11758/mauritius-criminalises-ecocide

• L'Express (Mauritius) commentary on the ecocide amendment: https://lexpress.mu/node/557358

• Stop Ecocide International, Mauritius criminalises ecocide: https://www.stopecocide.earth/bn-2025/mauritius-criminalises-ecocide

• Inside Climate News, 4 November 2026: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04112026/meat-company-sued-for-money-laundering/

• Global Investigations Review, 5 November 2026: https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/article/jbs-barclays-targeted-alleged-aml-violations

• Brasil de Fato, 4 November 2026: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2026/11/04/jbs-e-denunciada-na-europa-por-suspeita-de-lavagem-de-dinheiro-ligada-ao-desmatamento-na-amazonia/

• The Rio Times, JBS response: https://www.riotimesonline.com/jbs-money-laundering-complaints-europe/

• Financial Crimes Commission, director charged under ss.36(1)(b) and 38(3) FCCA with s.44(1)(b) Interpretation and General Clauses Act (March 2026): https://fcc.mu/?p=18044

• Police v Aderibigbe, ruling of 27 January 2025 (charge under s.36 FCCA, reasonable grounds for suspecting): https://fcc.mu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Police-v-Yinka-Aderibigbe-Ruling-27.01.25.pdf